In the Spring of 2016 I taught a course entitled Environmental Ethics at Susquehanna University in Selinsgrove, PA. One of the assignments was to choose an environmental film and write a review in which they address the question of who or what is to
be included in moral consideration, according to the film. They also needed to take and justify an ethical
position on the environmental problem depicted in the film using the
theological, ethical and philosophical vocabularies we covered in
class. Finally, they were asked to explore the
ambiguities and challenges of the problem and articulate what they would suggest
a viewer do after watching the film.
I invited some of the students to share their reviews as a guest blog post:
Environmental Ethics
Instructor: Dr. Leah Schade
The film Journey of the Universe took me through an experience like no
other. The film starts by showing a beautiful part of earth that has not been heavily
impacted by the industrial machine and really lets you take in the beauty of
the world. It connects that beauty of the landscape with everything else in the
entire universe. By making this connection, the film tries to interconnect human
beings to nature; this in turn gets the viewer to really question what level of
respect for nature we really have. This film’s use of an interconnected way of
life tries to show viewers that we as humans are a part of something much
bigger than ourselves and we should respect the earth and all life (organic and
non-organic) that it holds.
The film starts our journey by showing the
Big Bang. It then goes on to explain that every element that is in our universe
today can be traced back to that initial spark. Everything we know today is
from that one event, and the film is trying to show the association that we
have with all of earth and that we are all derived from the same material. It
is demanding that we work in a mutual relationship with our environment and
have the common decency to respect our mother earth. Picture the earth as a living cell. The earth has many mechanisms to adapt over time. This concept is a known as Gaia Theory. Gaia Theory postulates that humans and other organic life
creates a self-sustaining system of this planet which is designed to thrive.[1] This film introduces
concepts of Gaia Theory to the viewer and expresses to the viewer that we and
the earth are partners. This concept of human and nature being intertwined is
also seen in Hindu religion. For example, a passage from the Vana Purana (12.26) states:
Let
all the great elements bless the dawning day:
Earth
with its smell, water with its taste,
fire
with its radiance, air with its touch,
and
sky with its sound.[2]
This
passage directly connects different elements of the earth with human senses in
order to encourage humans to understand that they are truly dependent on nature.
Lately, we have not been treating the
earth as a partner but more as a slave to us. With the drastically increasing
population problem that we have today, we are finding that space to hold this
huge number of people is decreasing rapidly which ends up hurting nearly all
other species that live on this planet. We want to push and advance the human
agenda, but many are not realizing the irreversible damage that is being done
to the planet.
The earth had a much greater
amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere many million years ago because the
sun was cooler than it is now. As the sun has heated up over the millennia because
of nuclear fission, the earth needed to cool itself down and it did this by releasing
some of the carbon into the air and creating carbon-based shells for early
aquatic life. This adaptability of the earth has been the reason why the planet
is stable and able to thrive and function so well after billions of years.
However, with the advancing science and
technology that is around us today, we are forcing nature to work for us and
meet our demands instead of living in a healthy relationship with her. This
film suggests that we should not be making this earth our slave, but regarding
it as sacred, perhaps even as a divine mother.
This notion of divine feminine is also seen in Hindu tradition. “[T]he
imaging of the divine and human ‘feminine’ as expressions of creative and
sustainive cosmic energy underlying the phenomenal world, are ideas capable of
feminist and ecological interpretation.”[3] This concept of treating
the earth as a divine being has been instilled in cultures for generations, but
for some reason has been forgotten in Western culture. The nurture and passion
we put out towards the earth will be given back to us by the planet’s increasing
beauty and stability. This once again connects the earth and all of its
inhabitants to each other and demonstrates that we are not different from the
ground on which we walk; so, we should treat that ground with as much respect
and passion as we would our own mother or brother.
After watching this film, the
question becomes: What can I do? How can I stop this vast problem that seems to
be getting more and more out of hand? Well, the answer all starts just like our
universe did: with a spark. As with the creation of the universe, a spark so
small can create so much. Go against societal norms and start asking how it can
be stopped. A spark or an idea can influence so much no matter how small. That is
what is needed in order to change the increasingly growing reality of our
slowly dying planet.
Executive ProducersMary Evelyn Tucker
John Grim
John Grim
Host
Brian Thomas Swimme
Brian Thomas Swimme
[1] "Gaia Hypothesis." Wikipedia. Wikimedia
Foundation, n.d. Web. 10 Mar. 2016.
[2] Gottlieb, Roger S. "Hinduism and
Deep Ecology." This
Sacred Earth Religion, Nature, Environment. Florence: Taylor and Francis,
2003. 302.
[3] Ruether, Rosemary Radford. "The
Greening of World Religions - Hinduism."Integrating Ecofeminism,
Globalization, and World Religions. Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2005.
53.
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